Sawatdee Khrab! Today was one of the very few days in the past 2 months where I actually had to be somewhere at a specific time. I had to go look at apartments (read about apartment) then I had my first Thai language class which takes place Monday and Wednesday from 5-7 pm at Thai Language Express and gives me the all-important 1 year Education visa.
First of all, it felt kind of wierd actually having to be somewhere. Keep in mind that for the last 5+ years I’ve been running around from workouts to personal training appointments 6 days a week. I went from a schedule heavy in appointments to a schedule heavy in sleep. I managed to arrive to both appointments last minute.
To get to my language class I even considered running the wrong way down two escalators from the BTS skytrain but I decided I didn’t feel like spending the night in a Thai jail so I took the long way around.
Tonal Languages are Difficult
You can see the Thai alphabet is very different from the letters you are reading but that is only half of the story. Each word can have 1 or more tones. There are 5 different tones in Thai, mid, low, falling, high and rising. Each letter which has a little mark on the top right signifies a different way to pronounce the word.
As we learned there are different tones in English but they do not completely change the meaning of the word. In Thai they do which makes it extremely difficult for me to grasp on the first day of class 
For example you can say mai 5 different ways. Each tone completely chances the word which could either mean, mile, new, no, right? or silk but western ears won’t likely be able to tell the difference.
How the First Thai Class Went
Anyone that knows me can pretty much see how my first class went. Of course I was staring at the pretty girls walking by and spacing out while I got my ass handed to me in group activities. Evidentally, like most Thai things, the cirricululm was not put together with strict rules in mind as some members of my class of 8 or so have been taking Thai for weeks and others have just started like me. The first half of the 2 hour class was tought in English, explaining some rules, etc. while the second half was the total immersion style with the teacher Nana speaking all Thai.
I have heard the immersion method of learning a language is the best but I cannot see how. I am in living in Bangkok, Thailand and would think that living my day to day life would enable me to become immersed in the Thai language enough. I will leave it at that as it is 5am (my usual bedtime) and have more on Thai language very soon.
